This liver poodle certainly looks the part. Woolly liver coat, bronzed in the sun. This dog has the rustic appearance that is worth of any working-type golden or Chesapeake. Not a fancy dog at all.
Centuries before there were water spaniels and modern retrievers, the working “pick-up dogs” were very much like this character. Whether modern poodles and other dogs of this type share an ancestry with these dogs is still up for debate. The historical record strongly suggests that they are relatives, but the latest genetic studies cast doubt upon them sharing a common ancestry. I think we need more careful study of the genetic relationships between these breeds before one can say anything conclusive. Perhaps DNA from historical specimens, which may not be all that hard to find, could be included in the analysis.
From the British Isles to Russia and from Portugal to Denmark, the poodle or barbet-type water dog retrieved ducks and other game, fetched arrows that missed their targets, herded waterfowl into nets, and helped set lines and nets for fishermen.
I am reminded of this seventeenth description by Gervase Markham of the English rough water dog, which was the poodle-type that was indigenous to the British Isles:
First, for the colour of the best water dog, albeit some…will ascribe more excellency to one colour than to another, as the black to be the best and hardest, and the Liver-hued swiftest in swimming, and the pied or spotted dog, quickest of scent; yet in truth it is nothing so, for all colours are alike, and so a dog of any of the former colours may be excellent good dogs…according to their first ordering and training; for instruction is the liquor wherewith they are seasoned, and if they be well-handled at the first, they will ever smell of that discretion, and if they be ill-handled they will ever stink of that folly: For nature is a true mistress and bestowes her gifts freely, and it is only nurture which abuseth them. To proceed then, your dog may be of any colour and yet excellent, and his hair in general would be long and curled, not loose and shaggy; for the first shows hardness and ability to endure the water, the other much tenderness and weakness, making his sport grievous. His head would be round and curled, his ears broad and hanging, his eye full, lively and quick, his nose very short, his lip hound-like, side [ample] and rough-bearded, his chops with a full set of strong teeth, and the general features of his whole countenance being united together would be as lion-like as might be, for that shows fierceness and goodness. His neck would be thick and short, his breast like the breast of a ship, sharp and compact; his shoulders broad, his fore legs straight, his chine [spine] square, his buttocks round, his rigs compassed [curved], his belly gaunt, his thighs brawny, his cambrels [hocks] crooked, his pasterns strong and dew clawed, and all his four feet spacious [webbed] to the claw, like a water duck, for they being his oars to row him in the water, having that shape, will carry his body away the faster.
The poodle is a rough water-dog, but not all rough water-dogs are poodles. Rough water-dog is the older and more inclusive term.
Of that sort today we could name Spanish Water Dog, Portuguese Water Dog, Barbet, Poodle, and no doubt others. Even the “Labradoodle”.
Some texts call the English rough water dog “a poodle.”
I don’t think this is accurate. I think there actually was a breed of rough water dog native to the British Isles, and the Irish water spaniel is probably the closest thing to it in terms of appearance.
I should note that “rough” refers to the coat, not that the dogs were bred to swim in whitewater.
Rough water dogs, both large and small, are illustrated in Bewick’s engravings.
George Stubbs (British, 18th Century) painted water dogs and water spaniels (and other spaniels and many more breeds/types), including the imposing portrait of a white dog in a small boat, which is variously titled “White Poodle in a Punt” and “Water Dog in a Punt”. Unfortunately, most writers on art don’t really know much about dogs/dog history, hence the often dubious nomenclature about canine subjects.